A man came up the garden looking quickly from side to side for an empty place. I watched him in a tired lazy way. There was a bustle and roll and energy in his walk. I noticed the thickness of his legs above the knee, the arms that hung so loosely and limply by his sides as they do with people who wear loose hanging clothes without sleeves, his dark fat face and the sensual mouth, the great curve of the upper lip and the hanging lower one. A clever face, dark and inscrutable, with its large mysterious eyes and the heavy lids which went into deep folds at the corners. He stopped near my table, looked at the empty chair and then at me, and said: "Excuse me, Sir, but d'you mind my sitting at your table?" I noticed the slight thickness of the voice, the overemphasis, and the little note of assertiveness in it. I said I didn't mind at all. He sat down, leaned back in his chair, and took his hat off. He had a high forehead, black hair, and well-shaped fat hands. "Fine day," he said, "wonderfully fine day, the finest day I ever remember. Nothing to beat a fine English spring day." I saw the delicate apple-blossom and the pale blue sky behind his large dark head. I smiled. He saw the smile, flushed, and then smiled himself. "You are amused," he said, still smiling, "I believe I know why." "Yes," I said, "You knew me at once and I knew you. We show up, don't we, under the apple-blossom and this sky. It doesn't belong to us, do you wish it did?" "Ah," he said seriously, "that's the question. Or rather we don't belong to it. We belong to Palestine still, but I'm not sure that it doesn't belong to us for all that." "Well, perhaps your version is truer than mine. I'll take it, but there's still the question, do you wish _you_ belonged to _it_?" He wasn't a bit offended. He tilted back his chair, put one thumb in the arm-hole of his waistcoat, and looked round the garden. He showed abominably concentrated, floridly intelligent, in the thin spring air and among the inconspicuous tea-drinkers. He didn't answer my question; he was thinking, and when he spoke, he asked another: "Do you ever go to Synagogue?" "No." "Nor do I, except on Yom Kippur. I still go then every year--pure habit. I don't believe in it, of course; I believe in nothing--you believe in nothing--we're all sceptics. And yet we belong to Palestine still. Funny, ain't it? How it comes out! Under the apple-blossom and blue sky, as you say, as well as--as--among the tombs." "Among the tombs?" "Ah, I was thinking of another man I met. He belongs to Palestine too. Shall I tell you about him?" I said I wished he would. He put his hand's in his pockets and began at once. * * * * * * * * *